Mrs. Pomfret was a proud woman, for she had at last obtained the consent
of the lion to attend a lunch party. She would have liked a dinner much
better, but beggars are not choosers, and she seized eagerly on the
lunch. The two days before the convention Mr. Crewe was to spend at
Leith; having continual conferences, of course, receiving delegations,
and discussing with prominent citizens certain offices which would be
in his gift when he became governor. Also, there was Mr. Watling's
nominating speech to be gone over carefully, and Mr. Crewe's own speech
of acceptance to be composed. He had it in his mind, and he had decided
that it should have two qualities: it should be brief and forceful.
Gratitude, however, is one of the noblest qualities of man, and a
statesman should not fail to reward his faithful workers and adherents.
As one of the chiefest of these, Mrs. Pomfret was entitled to high
consideration. Hence the candidate had consented to have a lunch given
in his honour, naming the day and the hour; and Mrs. Pomfret, believing
that a prospective governor should possess some of the perquisites of
royalty, in a rash moment submitted for his approval a list of guests.
This included two distinguished foreigners who were staying at the
Leith Inn, an Englishman and an Austrian, and an elderly lady of very
considerable social importance who was on a visit to Mrs. Pomfret.
Mr. Crewe had graciously sanctioned the list, but took the liberty
of suggesting as an addition to it the name of Miss Victoria Flint,
explaining over the telephone to Mrs. Pomfret that he had scarcely seen
Victoria all summer, and that he wanted particularly to see her.
Mrs. Pomfret declared that she had only left out Victoria because her
presence might be awkward for both of them, but Mr. Crewe waved this
aside as a trivial and feminine objection; so Victoria was invited, and
another young man to balance the table.
Mrs. Pomfret, as may have been surmised, was a woman of taste, and her
villa at Leith, though small, had added considerably to her reputation
for this quality. Patterson Pomfret had been a gentleman with red cheeks
and an income, who incidentally had been satisfied with both. He had
never tried to add to the income, which was large enough to pay the dues
of the clubs the lists of which he thought worthy to include his name;
large enough to pay hotel bills in London and Paris and at the baths,
and to free the servants at country houses; large enough to clothe his
wife and himself, and to teach Alice the three essentials of music,
French, and deportment. If that man is notable who has mastered one
thing well, Patterson Pomfret was a notable man: he had mastered the
possibilities of his income, and never in any year had he gone beyond it
by so much as a sole d vin blanc or a pair of red silk stockings. When
he died, he left a worthy financial successor in his wife.
Mrs. Pomfret, knowing the income, after an exhaustive search decided
upon Leith as the place to build her villa. It must be credited to her
foresight that, when she built, she saw the future possibilities of the
place. The proper people had started it. And it must be credited to her
genius that she added to these possibilities of Leith by bringing
to it such families as she thought worthy to live in the
neighbourhood--families which incidentally increased the value of the
land. Her villa had a decided French look, and was so amazingly trim and
neat and generally shipshape as to be fit--for only the daintiest and
most discriminating feminine occupation. The house was small, and its
metamorphosis from a plain wooden farm-house had been an achievement
that excited general admiration. Porches had been added, and a coat
of spotless white relieved by an orange striping so original that many
envied, but none dared to copy it. The striping went around the white
chimneys, along the cornice, under the windows and on the railings
of the porch: there were window boxes gay with geraniums and abundant
awnings striped white and red, to match the flowers: a high, formal
hemlock hedge hid the house from the road, through which entered a
blue-stone drive that cut the close-cropped lawn and made a circle to
the doorway. Under the great maples on the lawn were a tea-table, rugs,
and wicker chairs, and the house itself was furnished by a variety of
things of a design not to be bought in the United States of America:
desks, photograph frames, writing-sets, clocks, paperknives, flower
baskets, magazine racks, cigarette boxes, and dozens of other articles
for the duplicates of which one might have searched Fifth Avenue in
vain.
Mr. Crewe was a little late. Important matters, he said, had detained
him at the last moment, and he particularly enjoined Mrs. Pomfret's
butler to listen carefully for the telephone, and twice during lunch it
was announced that Mr. Crewe was wanted. At first he was preoccupied,
and answered absently across the table the questions of the Englishman
and the Austrian about American politics, and talked to the lady of
social prominence on his right not at all; nor to Mrs. Pomfret'--who
excused him. Being a lady of discerning qualities, however, the hostess
remarked that Mr. Crewe's eyes wandered more than once to the far end of
the oval table, where Victoria sat, and even Mrs. Pomfret could not
deny the attraction. Victoria wore a filmy gown of mauve that infinitely
became her, and a shadowy hat which, in the semi-darkness of the dining
room, was a wondrous setting for her shapely head. Twice she caught
Mr. Crewe's look upon her and returned it amusedly from under her
lashes,--and once he could have sworn that she winked perceptibly. What
fires she kindled in his deep nature it is impossible to say.
She had kindled other fires at her side. The tall young Englishman had
lost interest in American politics, had turned his back upon poor Alice
Pomfret, and had forgotten the world in general. Not so the Austrian,
who was on the other side of Alice, and who could not see Victoria. Mr.
Crewe, by his manner and appearance, had impressed him as a person of
importance, and he wanted to know more. Besides, he wished to improve
his English, and Alice had been told to speak French to him. By a lucky
chance, after several blind attempts, he awakened the interest of the
personality.
“I hear you are what they call reform in America?”
This was not the question that opened the gates.
“I don't care much for the word,” answered Mr. Crewe, shortly; “I prefer
the word progressive.”
Discourse on the word “progressive” by the Austrian almost a monologue.
But he was far from being discouraged.
“And Mrs. Pomfret tells me they play many detestable tricks on
you--yes?”
“Tricks!” exclaimed Mr. Crewe, the memory of many recent ones being
fresh in his mind; “I should say so. Do you know what a caucus is?”
“Caucus--caucus? It brings something to my head. Ah, I have seen a
picture of it, in some English book. A very funny picture--it is in fun,
yes?”
“A picture?” said Mr. Crewe. “Impossible!”
“But no,” said the Austrian, earnestly, with one finger to his temples.
“It is a funny picture, I know. I cannot recall. But the word caucus I
remember. That is a droll word.”
“Perhaps, Baron,” said Victoria, who had been resisting an almost
uncontrollable desire to laugh, “you have been reading 'Alice in
Wonderland.'”
The Englishman, Beatrice Chillingham, and some others (among whom were
not Mr. Crewe and Mrs. Pomfret) gave way to an extremely pardonable
mirth, in which the good-natured baron joined.
“Ach!” he cried. “It is so, I have seen it in 'Alice in Wonderland.'”
Here the puzzled expression returned to his face, “But they are birds,
are they not?”
Men whose minds are on serious things are impatient of levity, and Mr.
Crewe looked at the baron:
“No,” he said, “they are not birds.”
This reply was the signal for more laughter.
“A thousand pardons,” exclaimed the baron. “It is I who am so ignorant.
You will excuse me--yes?”
Mr. Crewe was mollified. The baron was a foreigner, he had been the
object of laughter, and Mr. Crewe's chivalrous spirit resented it.
“What we call a caucus in the towns of this State,” he said, “is a
meeting of citizens of one party to determine who their candidates shall
be. A caucus is a primary. There is a very loose primary law in this
State, purposely kept loose by the politicians of the Northeastern
Railroads, in order that they may play such tricks on decent men as they
have been playing on me.”
At this mention of the Northeastern Railroads the lady on Mr. Crewe's
right, and some other guests, gave startled glances at Victoria. They
observed with surprise that she seemed quite unmoved.
“I'll tell you one or two of the things those railroad lobbyists have
done,” said Mr. Crewe, his indignation rising with the subject, and
still addressing the baron. “They are afraid to let the people into the
caucuses, because they know I'll get the delegates. Nearly everywhere I
speak to the people, I get the delegates. The railroad politicians send
word to the town rings to hold snap caucuses' when they hear I'm coming
into a town to speak, and the local politicians give out notices only a
day before, and only to the voters they want in the caucus. In Hull the
other day, out of a population of two thousand, twenty men elected four
delegates for the railroad candidate.”
“It is corruption!” cried the baron, who had no idea who Victoria was,
and a very slim notion of what Mr. Crewe was talking about.
“Corruption!” said Mr. Crewe. “What can you expect when a railroad owns
a State? The other day in Britain, where they elect fourteen delegates,
the editor of a weekly newspaper printed false ballots with two of my
men at the top and one at the bottom, and eleven railroad men in the
middle. Fortunately some person with sense discovered the fraud before
it was too late.”
“You don't tell me!” said the baron.
“And every State and federal office-holder has been distributing passes
for the last three weeks.”
“Pass?” repeated the baron. “You mean they fight with the fist--so? To
distribute a pass--so,” and the baron struck out at an imaginary enemy.
“It is the American language. I have read it in the prize-fight. I am
told to read the prize-fight and the base-ball game.”
Mr. Crewe thought it obviously useless to continue this conversation.
“The railroad,” said the baron, “he is the modern Machiavelli.”
“I say,” Mr. Rangely, the Englishman, remarked to Victoria, “this is a
bit rough on you, you know.”
“Oh, I'm used to it,” she laughed.
“Mr. Crewe,” said Mrs. Pomfret, to the table at large, “deserves
tremendous credit for the fight he has made, almost single-handed.
Our greatest need in this country is what you have in England, Mr.
Rangely,--gentlemen in politics. Our country gentlemen, like Mr. Crewe,
are now going to assume their proper duties and responsibilities.” She
laid her napkin on the table and glanced at Alice as she continued:
“Humphrey, I shall have to appoint you, as usual, the man of the house.
Will you take the gentlemen into the library?”
Another privilege of celebrity is to throw away one's cigar, and walk
out of the smoking room if one is bored. Mr. Crewe was, in a sense, the
host. He indicated with a wave of his hand the cigars and cigarettes
which Mrs. Pomfret had provided, and stood in a thoughtful manner before
the empty fireplace, with his hands in his pockets, replying in brief
sentences to the questions of Mr. Chillingham and the others. To tell
the truth, Mr. Crewe was bringing to bear all of his extraordinary
concentration of mind upon a problem with which he had been occupied
for some years past. He was not a man, as we know, to take the important
steps of life in a hurry, although; like the truly great, he was capable
of making up his mind in a very brief period when it was necessary to
strike. He had now, after weighing the question with the consideration
which its gravity demanded, finally decided upon definite action.
Whereupon he walked out of the library, leaving the other guests to
comment as they would; or not comment at all, for all he cared. Like all
masterful men, he went direct to the thing he wanted.
The ladies were having coffee under the maples, by the tea-table. At
some little distance from the group Beatrice Chillingham was walking
with Victoria, and it was evident that Victoria found Miss Chillingham's
remarks amusing. These were the only two in the party who did not
observe Mr. Crewe's approach. Mrs. Pomfret, when she saw the direction
which he was taking, lost the thread of her conversation, and the lady
who was visiting her wore a significant expression.
“Victoria,” said Mr. Crewe, “let's go around to the other side of the
house and look at the view.”
Victoria started and turned to him from Miss Chillingham, with the fun
still sparkling in her eyes. It was, perhaps, as well for Mr. Crewe that
he had not overheard their conversation; but this might have applied to
any man.
“Are you sure you can spare the time?” she asked.
Mr. Crewe looked at his watch--probably from habit.
“I made it a point to leave the smoking room early,” he replied.
“We're flattered--aren't we, Beatrice?”
Miss Chillingham had a turned-up nose, and a face which was apt to be
slightly freckled at this time of year; for she contemned vanity and
veils. For fear of doing her an injustice, it must be added that she was
not at all bad-looking; quite the contrary All that can be noted in
this brief space is that Beatrice Chillingham was herself. Some people
declared that she was possessed of the seven devils of her sex which Mr.
Stockton wrote about.
“I'm flattered,” she said, and walked off towards the tea-table with a
glance in which Victoria read many meanings. Mr. Crewe paid no attention
either to words, look, or departure.
“I want to talk to you,” he said.
“You've made that very plain, at least,” answered Victoria. “Why did you
pretend it was the view?”
“Some conventionalities have to be observed, I suppose,” he said. “Let's
go around there. It is a good view.”
“Don't you think this is a little--marked?” asked Victoria, surveying
him with her hands behind her back.
“I can't help it if it is,” said Mr. Crewe. “Every hour is valuable to
me, and I've got to take my chances when I get 'em. For some reason, you
haven't been down at Leith much this summer. Why didn't you telephone
me, as I asked you.”
“Because I've suddenly grown dignified, I suppose,” she said. “And then,
of course, I hesitated to intrude upon such a person of importance as
you have become, Humphrey.”
“I've always got time to see you,” he replied. “I always shall have. But
I appreciate your delicacy. That sort of thing counts with a man more
than most women know.”
“Then I am repaid,” said Victoria, “for exercising self-control.”
“I find it always pays,” declared Mr. Crewe, and he glanced at her with
distinct approval. They were skirting the house, and presently came
out upon a tiny terrace where young Ridley had made a miniature Italian
garden when the Electric dividends had increased, and from which there
was a vista of the shallows of the Blue. Here was a stone garden-seat
which Mrs. Pomfret had brought from Italy, and over which she had
quarrelled with the customs authorities. Mr. Crewe, with a wave of
his hand, signified his pleasure that they should sit, and cleared his
throat.
“It's just as well, perhaps,” he began, “that we haven't had the chance
to see each other earlier. When a man starts out upon an undertaking of
the gravest importance, wherein he stakes his reputation, an undertaking
for which he is ridiculed and reviled, he likes to have his judgment
justified. He likes to be vindicated, especially in the eyes of--people
whom he cares about. Personally, I never had any doubt that I should be
the next governor, because I knew in the beginning that I had estimated
public sentiment correctly. The man who succeeds in this world is the
man who has sagacity enough to gauge public sentiment ahead of time, and
the courage to act on his beliefs.” Victoria looked at him steadily. He
was very calm, and he had one knee crossed over the other.
“And the sagacity,” she added, “to choose his lieutenants in the fight.”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Crewe. “I have always declared, Victoria, that you
had a natural aptitude for affairs.”
“I have heard my father say,” she continued, still maintaining
her steady glance, “that Hamilton Tooting is one of the shrewdest
politicians he has ever known. Isn't Mr. Tooting one of your right-hand
men?”
“He could hardly be called that,” Mr. Crewe replied. “In fact, I haven't
any what you might call 'right-hand men.' The large problems I have had
to decide for myself. As for Tooting, he's well enough in his way; he
understands the tricks of the politicians--he's played 'em, I guess.
He's uneducated; he's merely a worker. You see,” he went on, “one great
reason why I've been so successful is because I've been practical. I've
taken materials as I've found them.”
“I see,” answered Victoria, turning her head and gazing over the terrace
at the sparkling reaches of the river. She remembered the close of that
wintry afternoon in Mr. Crewe's house at the capital, and she was quite
willing to do him exact justice, and to believe that he had forgotten
it--which, indeed, was the case.
“I want to say,” he continued, “that although I have known
and--ahem--admired you for many years, Victoria, what has struck me most
forcibly in your favour has been your open-mindedness--especially on the
great political questions this summer. I have no idea how much you know
about them, but one would naturally have expected you, on account of
your father, to be prejudiced. Sometime, when I have more leisure, I
shall go into them, fully with you. And in the meantime I'll have my
secretary send you the complete list of my speeches up to date, and I
know you will read them carefully.”
“You are very kind, Humphrey,” she said.
Absorbed in the presentation of his subject (which chanced to be
himself), Mr. Crewe did not observe that her lips were parted, and that
there were little creases around her eyes.
“And sometime,” said Mr. Crewe, “when all this has blown over a little,
I shall have a talk with your father. He undoubtedly understands that
there is scarcely any question of my election. He probably realizes,
too, that he has been in the--wrong, and that railroad domination must
cease--he has already made several concessions, as you know. I wish you
would tell him from me that when I am governor, I shall make it a point
to discuss the whole matter with him, and that he will find in me no foe
of corporations. Justice is what I stand for. Temperamentally, I am too
conservative, I am too much of a business man, to tamper with vested
interests.”
“I will tell him, Humphrey,” said Victoria.
Mr. Crewe coughed, and looked at his watch once, more. “And now, having
made that clear,” he said, “and having only a quarter of an hour before
I have to leave to keep an appointment, I am going to take up another
subject. And I ask you to believe it is not done lightly, or without due
consideration, but as the result of some years of thought.”
Victoria turned to him seriously--and yet the creases were still around
her eyes.
“I can well believe it, Humphrey,” she answered. “But--have you time?”
“Yes,” he said, “I have learned the value of minutes.”
“But not of hours, perhaps,” she replied.
“That,” said Mr. Crewe, indulgently, “is a woman's point of view. A man
cannot dally through life, and your kind of woman has no use for a man
who dallies. First, I will give you my idea of a woman.”
“I am all attention,” said Victoria.
“Well,” said Mr. Crewe, putting the tops of his fingers together,
“she should excel as a housewife. I haven't any use for your so-called
intellectual woman. Of course, what I mean by a housewife is something
a little less bourgeoise; she should be able to conduct an establishment
with the neatness and despatch and economy of a well-run hotel. She
should be able to seat a table instantly and accurately, giving to the
prominent guests the prestige they deserve. Nor have I any sympathy with
the notion that makes a married woman a law unto herself. She enters
voluntarily into an agreement whereby she puts herself under the control
of her husband: his interests, his career, his--”
“Comfort?” suggested Victoria.
“Yes, his comfort--all that comes first. And his establishment is
conducted primarily, and his guests selected, in the interests of his
fortunes. Of course, that goes without saying of a man in high place in
public life. But he must choose for his wife a woman who is equal to all
these things,--to my mind her highest achievement,--who makes the most
of the position he gives her, presides at his table and entertainments,
and reaches such people as, for any reason, he is unable to reach. I
have taken the pains to point out these things in a general way, for
obvious reasons. My greatest desire is to be fair.”
“What,” asked Victoria, with her eyes on the river, “what are the
wages?”
Mr. Crewe laughed. Incidentally, he thought her profile very fine.
“I do not believe in flattery,” he said, “but I think I should add to
the qualifications personality and a sense of humour. I am quite sure I
could never live with a woman--who didn't have a sense of humour.”
“I should think it would be a little difficult,” said Victoria, “to
get a woman with the qualifications you enumerate and a sense of humour
thrown in.”
“Infinitely difficult,” declared Mr. Crewe, with more ardour than he had
yet shown. “I have waited a good many years, Victoria.”
“And yet,” she said, “you have been happy. You have a perpetual source
of enjoyment denied to some people.”
“What is that?” he asked. It is natural for a man to like to hear the
points of his character discussed by a discerning woman.
“Yourself,” said Victoria, suddenly looking him full in the face. “You
are complete, Humphrey, as it is. You are happily married already.
Besides,” she added, laughing a little, “the qualities you have
mentioned--with the exception of the sense of humour--are not those of
a wife, but of a business partner of the opposite sex. What you really
want is a business partner with something like a fifth interest, and
whose name shall not appear in the agreement.”
Mr. Crewe laughed again. Nevertheless, he was a little puzzled over this
remark.
“I am not sentimental,” he began.
“You certainly are not,” she said.
“You have a way,” he replied, with a shade of reproof in his voice,
“you have a way at times of treating serious things with a little less
gravity than they deserve. I am still a young man, but I have seen a
good deal of life, and I know myself pretty well. It is necessary to
treat matrimony from a practical as well as a sentimental point of view.
There wouldn't be half the unhappiness and divorces if people took time
to do this, instead of rushing off and getting married immediately. And
of course it is especially important for a man in my position to study
every aspect of the problem before he takes a step.”
By this time a deep and absorbing interest in a new aspect of Mr.
Crewe's character had taken possession of Victoria.
“And you believe that, by taking thought, you can get the kind of a wife
you want?” she asked.
“Certainly,” he replied; “does that strike you as strange?”
“A little,” said Victoria. “Suppose,” she added gently, “suppose that
the kind of wife you'd want wouldn't want you?”
Mr. Crewe laughed again.
“That is a contingency which a strong man does not take into
consideration,” he answered. “Strong men get what they want. But upon
my word, Victoria, you have a delicious way of putting things. In your
presence I quite forget the problems and perplexities which beset me.
That,” he said, with delicate meaning, “that is another quality I should
desire in a woman.”
“It is one, fortunately, that isn't marketable,” she said, “and it's the
only quality you've mentioned that's worth anything.”
“A woman's valuation,” said Mr. Crewe.
“If it made you forget your own affairs, it would be priceless.”
“Look here, Victoria,” cried Mr. Crewe, uncrossing his knees, “joking's
all very well, but I haven't time for it to-day. And I'm in a serious
mood. I've told you what I want, and now that I've got to go in a few
minutes, I'll come to the point. I don't suppose a man could pay a woman
a higher compliment than to say that his proposal was the result of some
years of thought and study.”
Here Victoria laughed outright, but grew serious again at once.
“Unless he proposed to her the day he met her. That would be a real
compliment.”
“The man,” said Mr. Crewe, impatiently, “would be a fool.”
“Or else a person of extreme discernment,” said Victoria. “And love is
lenient with fools. By the way, Humphrey, it has just occurred to me
that there's one quality which some people think necessary in a wife,
which you didn't mention.”
“What's that?”
“Love,” said Victoria.
“Love, of course,” he agreed; “I took that for granted.”
“I supposed you did,” said Victoria, meekly.
“Well, now, to come to the point--” he began again.
But she interrupted him by glancing at the watch on her gown, and
rising.
“What's the matter?” he asked, with some annoyance.
“The fifteen minutes are up,” she announced. “I cannot take the
responsibility of detaining you.”
“We will put in tantalizing as another attractive quality,” he laughed.
“I absolve you of all responsibility. Sit down.”
“I believe you mentioned obedience,” she answered, and sat down again at
the end of the bench, resting her chin on her gloved hand, and looking
at him. By this time her glances seemed to have gained a visibly
disturbing effect. He moved a little nearer to her, took off his hat
(which he had hitherto neglected to do), and thrust his hands abruptly
into his pockets--as much as to say that he would not be responsible for
their movements if they were less free.
“Hang it all, Victoria,” he exclaimed, “I'm a practical man, and I
try to look at this, which is one of the serious things in life, in a
practical way.”
“One of the serious things,” she repeated, as though to herself.
“Yes,” he said, “certainly.”
“I merely asked to be sure of the weight you gave it. Go on.”
“In a practical way, as I was saying. Long ago I suspected that you had
most of those qualities.”
“I'm overwhelmed, Humphrey,” she cried, with her eyes dancing. “But--do
you think I could cultivate the rest?”
“Oh, well,” said Mr. Crewe, “I put it that way because no woman is
perfect, and I dislike superlatives.”
“I should think superlatives would be very hard to live with,” she
reflected. “But--dreadful thought!--suppose I should lack an essential?”
“What--for instance?”
“Love--for instance. But then you did not put it first. It was I who
mentioned it, and you who took it for granted.”
“Affection seems to be a more sensible term for it,” he said. “Affection
is the lasting and sensible thing. You mentioned a partnership, a word
that singularly fits into my notion of marriage. I want to be honest
with you, and understate my feelings on that subject.”
Victoria, who had been regarding him with a curious look that puzzled
him, laughed again.
“I have been hoping you haven't exaggerated them,” she replied.
“They're stronger than you think,” he declared. “I never felt this way
in my life before. What I meant to say was, that I never understood
running away with a woman.”
“That does not surprise me,” said Victoria.
“I shouldn't know where to run to,” he proclaimed.
“Perhaps the woman would, if you got a clever one. At any rate, it
wouldn't matter. One place is as good as another. Some go to Niagara,
and some to Coney Island, and others to Venice. Personally, I should
have no particular preference.”
“No preference!” he exclaimed.
“I could be happy in Central Park,” she declared.
“Fortunately,” said Mr. Crewe, “you will never be called upon to make
the trial.”
Victoria was silent. Her thoughts, for the moment, had flown elsewhere,
but Mr. Crewe did not appear to notice this. He fell back into the
rounded hollow of the bench, and it occurred to him that he had never
quite realized that profile. And what an ornament she would be to his
table.
“I think, Humphrey,” she said, “that we should be going back.”
“One moment, and I'll have finished,” he cried. “I've no doubt you are
prepared for what I am going to say. I have purposely led up to it, in
order that there might be no misunderstanding. In short, I have never
seen another woman with personal characteristics so well suited for my
life, and I want you to marry me, Victoria. I can offer you the position
of the wife of a man with a public career--for which you are so well
fitted.”
Victoria shook her head slowly, and smiled at him.
“I couldn't fill the position,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he replied, smiling back at her, “perhaps I am the best judge
of that.”
“And you thought,” she asked slowly, “that I was that kind of a woman?”
“I know it to be a practical certainty,” said Mr. Crewe.
“Practical certainties,” said Victoria, “are not always truths. If I
should sign a contract, which I suppose, as a business man, you would
want, to live up to the letter of your specifications,--even then I
could not do it. I should make life a torture for you, Humphrey. You
see, I am honest with you, too--much as your offer dazzles me.” And she
shook her head again.
“That,” exclaimed Mr. Crewe, impatiently, “is sheer nonsense. I want
you, and I mean to have you.”
There came a look into her eyes which Mr. Crewe did not see, because her
face was turned from him.
“I could be happy,” she said, “for days and weeks and years in a but on
the side of Sawanec. I could be happy in a farm-house where I had to
do all the work. I am not the model housewife which your imagination
depicts, Humphrey. I could live in two rooms and eat at an Italian
restaurant--with the right man. And I am afraid the wrong one would wake
up one day and discover that I had gone. I am sorry to disillusionize
you, but I don't care a fig for balls and garden-parties and salons. It
would be much more fun to run away from them to the queer places of the
earth--with the right man. And I should have to possess one essential to
put up with--greatness and what you call a public career.”
“And what is that essential?” he asked.
“Love,” said Victoria. He heard the word but faintly, for her face
was still turned away from him. “You've offered me the things that are
attainable by taking thought, by perseverance, by pertinacity, by the
outwitting of your fellow-men, by the stacking of coins. And I want--the
unattainable, the divine gift which is bestowed, which cannot be
acquired. If it could be acquired, Humphrey,” she added, looking at him,
“I am sure you would acquire it--if you thought it worth while.”
“I don't understand you,” he said,--and looked it.
“No,” said Victoria, “I was afraid you wouldn't. And moreover, you never
would. There is no use in my trying to make myself any clearer, and
you'll have to keep your appointment. I hesitate to contradict you, but
I am not the kind of woman you want. That is one reason I cannot marry
you. And the other is, that I do not love you.”
“You can't be in love with any one else?” he cried.
“That does seem rather preposterous, I'll admit,” she answered. “But if
I were, it wouldn't make any difference.”
“You won't marry me?” he said, getting to his feet. There was
incredulity in his voice, and a certain amount of bewilderment. The
thing was indeed incredible!
“No,” said Victoria, “I won't.”
And he had only to look into her face to see that it was so. Hitherto
nil desperandum had been a good working motto, but something told him it
was useless in this case. He thrust on his hat and pulled out his watch.
“Well,” he said, “that settles it. I must--say I can't see your point
of view--but that settles it. I must say, too, that your refusal is
something of a shock after what I had been led to expect after the past
few years.”
“The person you are in love with led you to expect it, Humphrey, and
that person is--yourself. You are in love temporarily with your own
ideal of me.”
“And your refusal comes at an unfortunate tune for me,” he continued,
not heeding her words, “when I have an affair on my hands of such
magnitude, which requires concentrated thought. But I'm not a man to
cry, and I'll make the best of it.”
“If I thought it were more than a temporary disappointment, I should be
sorry for you,” said Victoria. “I remember that you felt something like
this when Mr. Rutter wouldn't sell you his land. The lady you really
want,” she added, pointing with her parasol at the house, “is in there,
waiting for you.”
Mr. Crewe did not reply to this prophecy, but followed Victoria around
the house to the group on the lawn, where he bade his hostess a somewhat
preoccupied farewell, and bowed distantly to the guests.
“He has so much on his mind,” said Mrs. Pomfret. “And oh, I quite
forgot--Humphrey!” she cried, calling after him, “Humphrey!”
“Yes,” he said, turning before he reached his automobile. “What is it?”
“Alice and I are going to the convention, you know, and I meant to tell
you that there would be ten in the party--but I didn't have a chance.”
Here Mrs. Pomfret glanced at Victoria, who had been joined at once by
the tall Englishman. “Can you get tickets for ten?”
Mr. Crewe made a memorandum.
“Yes,” he said, “I'll get the tickets--but I don't see what you want to
go for.”